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Everyday, archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists and paleontologists make fascinating discoveries about the ancient world. Only a handful of these discoveries get the coverage they deserve. Herodotus Returns spreads the word by collecting the latest news on the distant past.
(Image: paintings in Lascaux Cave)

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The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC) spent a lifetime wandering to distant corners of the known world, recording the customs, beliefs and stories of the nations he encountered. Known today as "The Father of History," Herodotus was also arguably the world's first anthropologist and journalist, as well as being a marvelous storyteller. His peculiar "The Histories," the first history of the world, provides an account of the Greco-Persian wars, but doesn't leave out the flying snakes of Arabia and dog-sized ants in India.

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Jordan has requested that Canada seize Israel’s 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, currently on display in the Royal Ontario Museum.

The London-based Globe and Mail reports that Jordan has asked Canada to seize Israel’s 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls that are currently on display in Toronto. The scrolls are on display until until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Jordan claims that the scrolls were found in “disputed territory” that Israel captured from Jordanian control in 1967, and asks Canada to hold them until the question of their ownership is settled. Jordan’s control of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley – which it called the “West Bank” – from 1948 until 1967, was recognized internationally by only two countries: Great Britain and Pakistan….

Jordan made its demand two weeks ago, summoning the Canadian chargé d’affaires in Amman. Citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, Jordan claims that Israel acted illegally after 1967 when it took the scrolls from the Rockefeller Museum in eastern Jerusalem and transferred them to the Israel Museum. The Palestinian Authority made a similar request several months ago.

The Dead Sea scrolls are about 900 documents and Biblical texts, discovered in one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century in the 1940’s and 50’s in caves in and around Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 B.C.E., and preserve evidence of Jewish life during the Second Temple period.